Sunday, January 31, 2010

Kintani Valley Bandits

It took two more weeks (of gaming – two days in terms of the campaign) to solve the Murder of Kyotei Castle.

This week Rick and Dave were out partying – but they dropped off Jackson and Patrick… so we just played a little skirmish game and said Bayushi Gorou had to journey to Otosan Uchi to make a report ot the Emerald Champion about the murder of the Daimyo. The rest of the group had to stay in the Kintani Valley as Kitsuki Shin was still recovering from his nearly mortal wounds sustained in the action the previous week and could not be moved (other than to get across the river into Phoenix lands where they had better hearlers) . Isawa Minoru – who was also seriously injured – we said healed rather quickly because, let’s face it, he’s got the Kami on his side!

So while hanging about in the domain of Daimyo Shiba Katsuda they decided to make themselves useful and try and track down a group of bandits that had been plaguing the area and had thus far eluded Shiba’s warriors…

The group tracked the bandits to their hide out deep in a wooded mountain valley. At dawn they attacked!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Isawa Minoru, and the two Phoenix Yojimbo sent to protect him, were the two heroes of the evening. The Yojimbos each cut down more of the bandits than the big talking lion (Phoenix Yojimbo extras fighting d8, Strength d8, Lion PC Wildcard fighting d12, strength d12…). Minoru himself saved the players from getting their asses kicked by tying up the one wildcard on the bandits side with the help of the kami – the one guy that really could have laid the hurt down on the PCs…

The Bandits leader was so nasty that the ONE TURN he was not ensorcelled he stabbed Okatsu with a knife… through her armour… giving her 3 wounds – while he himself was feeling the hurt of two wounds she had just slashed into him! The Phoenix yojimbo strode up and cut him down the next turn before he could do much more damage!

I hope that little spell doesn’t become a one-trick-pony that they always fall back on… or I might have to throw out some nasty shugenja as adversaries… or Oni that are immune to silly little spells like that… I’m already conisering raising the bar for badguy skillz just to deal with all the d10/d12 fighting in the group!